Blotted out was all the coast-line, gone were rock and wood and sand; Grimly anxious stood the helmsman with the tiller in his hand, And questioned of the darkness what was sea and what was land. And the preacher heard his dear ones, nestled round him, weeping sore: "Never heed, my little children! Christ is walking on before To the pleasant land of Heaven, where the sea shall be no more!" All at once the great cloud parted, like a curtain drawn aside, To let down the torch of lightning on the terror far and wide; And the thunder and the whirlwind together smote the tide. There was wailing in the shallop, woman's wail and man's despair, A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks so sharp and bare, And through it all the murmur of Father Avery's prayer. From the struggle in the darkness with the wild waves and the blast, On a rock, where every billow broke above him as it passed, Alone of all his household the man of God was cast. There a comrade heard him praying in the pause of wave and wind: "All my own have gone before me, and I linger just behind; Not for life I ask, but only for the rest thy ransomed find! "In this night of death I challenge the promise of thy Word! Let me see the great salvation of which mine ears have heard! Let me pass from hence forgiven, through the grace of Christ, our Lord! "In the baptism of these waters wash white my every sin, And let me follow up to Thee my household and my kin! Open the sea-gate of thy Heaven and let me enter in!" The ear of God was open to his servant's last request; As the strong wave swept him downward the sweet prayer upward pressed, And the soul of Father Avery went with it to his rest. There was wailing on the mainland from the rocks of Marblehead, In the stricken church of Newbury the notes for prayer were read, And long by board and hearthstone the living mourned the dead. And still the fishers out-bound, or scudding from the squall, With grave and reverent faces the ancient tale recall, When they see the white waves breaking on the "Rock of Avery's Fall!" THE DENSLOW PALACE. It is the privilege of authors and artists to see and to describe; to "see clearly and describe vividly" gives the pass on all state occasions. It is the "cap of darkness" and the _talaria_, and wafts them whither they will. The doors of boudoirs and senate-chambers open quickly, and close after them,--excluding the talentless and staring rabble. I, who am one of the humblest of the seers,--a universal admirer of all things beautiful and great,--from the commonwealths of Plato and Solon, severally, expulsed, as poet without music or politic, and a follower of the great,--I, from my dormitory, or nest, of twelve feet square, can, at an hour's notice, or less, enter palaces, and bear away, unchecked and unquestioned, those _imagines_ of Des Cartes which emanate or are thrown off from all forms,-- and this, not in imagination, but in the flesh.